Let's start our Friday roundup by checking in with ATV who has put up his third blog post of this summer. As he did with his previous two posts ATV started out with an update from his Romanian class and some tidbits from the off-season 7 on 7 drill. He gave a shout out to incoming freshman Alex Mascarenas:
In football, training has picked up a bit in the weight room with numerous PR's being hit in all aspects which means we are striving for success. The outside conditioning has stayed competitive with the offense and defense going at it to show each other their stuff. Our afternoon workouts have also been going well. Everyone is attentive to their assignments and the players really want to learn, especially the young guys. They are asking questions and trying to help us right away! Hopefully, some of them come through. Alex Mascarenas had a nice interception last week, displaying good hands! But everyone in general has been performing well.
Read rest of his notes here.
Moving on to Ben Ball there is a good piece by Steve Megargee on Rivals.com about potential "new impact players" for college basketball next season who were coming off the bench this past season. Steve mentions JA as someone who might serve notice in 09-10:
Jerime Anderson, Soph., UCLA: Somebody has to run the Bruins' offense now that Darren Collison and Jrue Holiday have been drafted. Anderson seems like the most likely candidate. UCLA coach Ben Howland noted Anderson's outspoken nature and leadership potential after the season. He averaged just 8.6 minutes per game as a freshman and scored in double figures just twice, but he certainly has plenty of potential. Rivals.com rated Anderson as the No. 37 overall prospect and the No. 7 point guard in the 2008 recruiting class.
I think the key thing for JA will be to do his best to be steady and not get too high or low after individual game performances. I expect him to have a roller coaster season (along with the rest of the team) particularly early in the year. And now that I look back at it I really appreciate the fact that Coach Howland did what he could to make sure JA got in as much PT as possible as DC's backup (knowing full well that Jrue Holiday was making a pit stop at UCLA). There is no doubt that JA will have his share of tough moments in the coming season. He will need to battle through it and keep getting up for each game by focusing on defense. I am excited to see what this kid can do in the coming years in Westwood. JA will certainly have no shortage of role models to look up when it comes to previous Ben Ball warriors shining as pgs. More after the jump.
We have talked about DC a lot lately. It looks like JF has been having his version of a spectacular month both on and off the field. Fresh off winning the NBA championship, it looks like JF cleaned up in Las Vegas. It was our LV Bruin who first broke the news, spotting JF in "a hoodie and sunglasses" at WSOP. Pretty soon rest of the traditonal media followed as stories of JF rocking it at WSOP appeared in the LA Times (always two steps behind), the OC Register, and Poker Listings. Apparently JF is a natural at this:
"I've never played online," he said. "I played one day before I came here. The day before I flew out to Vegas I went to the casino in L.A. and played just so I knew what was going on at the table."
"I got lucky early and now I'm starting to get the hang of it."
Farmar is faring pretty well, considering there aren't too many players in the field with the lack of experience he's working with.
As insomniacslounge mentioned JF (at the time insomniac posted) was 25th among a field of 6,494 entrants. Oh and JF is also hosting a charity golf tournment in next 10 days with James Worthy, Jack Nicholson and some other celebrities helping out the community. Not too shabby.
Lastly, speaking of not too shabby if you haven't done it make sure to offer best wishes and congratulations to tasser10 for the arrival of LittleMissTasser10. It's all too surreal because I will always think of Tasser10 as the same kid who I hung out with from my very first day of class at UCLA. Times ... they are flying ... way too fast. Congrats against Tasser.
GO BRUINS.